Children's car seats are known in the art and generally have a hard plastic shell covered in padded soft goods. The typical seat also has a safety harness for securing a child in the seat. The harness arrangement is configured to retain a child occupant in the seat during use, especially in the event of a vehicle crash. The car seat usually has a seating area contoured to receive a child in a seated position.
In children's car seats of the type discussed above, the seat back of the child car seat has an upper portion that is typically wide enough to accommodate the shoulders of a child occupant. Due to the width, the upper portion of the seat back may permit a smaller child's head to move left and right excessively. Excessive lateral or side-to-side movement of a child's head can cause injury in the event of an emergency maneuver or a vehicle accident, especially during a side impact event. A child's head and neck can also move excessively even while the child is relaxed in the seat, such as while they sleep. Such excessive movement is especially undesirable in the case of younger children who could be more prone to injury.
Soft padded head rests in the form of neck stabilizers or soft head rests are known in the art. Such head rests can be added to the seat back to help address the above issues. These types of soft head rests are sometimes available with car seats and sometimes provided separately as an add-on accessory for a car seat that lacks such a soft, padded head rest. These types of head rests or pads can provide some degree of support, but generally are not adjustable to accommodate children having different head sizes and comfort tolerances.
There are many kinds of child car seats on the market that can be used in multiple configurations. U.S. Pat. No. 6,682,143 B2 discloses a conventional child car seat adapted to be used in an automobile. A larger-sized child can be secured on this conventional child car seat directly by the seat belt of the automobile.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,754,999 discloses another conventional child car seat that includes a base member and a seat assembly coupled on the base member and having a backrest.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,967 discloses still another conventional child car seat including a unitary shell having an upper backrest portion and a lower seat portion connected to each other by an integral hinge. The upper backrest portion can pivot relative to the lower seat portion to a position so that it is aligned with the lower seat portion to thereby facilitate storage and transport of this conventional child car seat.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,968 discloses yet another conventional child car seat including a seat member and a backrest member. The backrest member can be stowed within the seat member, thereby also facilitating packing and shipping of this conventional child car seat.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,625,043 discloses another car seat having a car seating portion that may be separated from the main portion of the seat. The main portion of the seat is pivotally attached to the base member.
However, despite these prior art child car seats, it is still desired to have a child car seat that includes a head rest area for a child seated therein. More particularly, it would be desirable to have a child car seat wherein the headrest support for the child is adjustable in both a horizontal and vertical direction with respect to the head of the child seated therein.